I Always Knew
by Caspian
Summary: About two months ago, I wrote a fic called "Do You Really Want to Know?" This is the continuation/end of that. Please read (both) and give me your thoughts.


_disclaimer: I don't own anything  
A/N: I'm sick with the flu, doped up on enough medication to sedate an elephant, and doubting my ability as a writer big time. Anyway this is the continuation of Do You Really Want to Know? that I had planned from the start, but always seemed to get sidetracked when I tried to write it. So I made it my project for today. I doubt anyone is really going to like this, but hey, sometimes you just have to right for yourself and not anybody else. And oh yeah, the second half to My Fathers Crown should be up in less than a week depending on school and track._  
  
  
  
**I Always Knew**  
  
  
  
_Prologue: Annie_  
  
To fully understand what happened that day, you probably need to know a little bit about Annie. You need to know that she had her mother's soft brown hair, and her father's sparkling blue eyes. You need to know that all the powers of hope and light lived inside her, and that they helped her to save lives before she was even born.  
  
Years ago, when I was just fifteen, an evil digimon called Scratchmon kidnapped TK and Kari and killed their parents. Scratchmon had somehow gotten it into his pointy head that if he tortured TK and Kari till they were almost dead, that if he made them experience enough pain and horror so that they were just about ready to welcome death, he could use an ancient spell to turn them evil and so have all their power as his own.  
  
His plan only half-worked. He did manage to turn TK and Kari to "the dark side" so to speak, but they were so powerful that nothing in heaven or hell could control them. They tore Scratchmon to shreds, literaly. And they would have done the same to us, who had gone through our worst nightmares to try and rescue them. As I looked at all the hate flashing in their eyes as they broke the world around us apart, I honestly didn't think there was any way we could come out with a happy ending.   
  
In their evil state TK and Kari could shape reality to their every whim, what kind of threat could an already tired band of kids and digimon be to gods?  
  
It was Sora who found a way. She somehow managed to use her powers of love to connect with the tiny spark of life growing in Kari's womb, and together they managed to cleanse the evil from our friends, and TK and Kari came back to us.  
  
A little less than nine months later we met Annie for the very first time, by a strange twist of fate she would be the first human baby born in the Digitalworld. I can still remember her looking up at all the smiling faces gathered around her as she lay in her mother's arms. "These are all your aunts and uncles." Kari told her. Annie looked at us all and smiled, for some reason I got the impression that we had already been introduced.  
  
"Okay everybody, that's enough." Joe ushered us all out of the tent Tai and Matt had set up. "Let's let mom and baby get some rest." Everybody groaned but did as ordered.  
  
As I left I took one last look behind me. Kari was gently humming a lullabye as she began to nurse her Annie. TK wrapped his arms around both of his "special girls", and rested his chin on Kari's shoulder. Mother and father had smiles of absolute contentment playing on their faces. Annie nuzzled closer to Kari as she studied her parents with her crystal clear eyes.   
  
I don't think any child ever had more loving parents. Even though the odds stacked against them were overwhelming, they managed to build a home full of love and joy for their little angel, for their hope and light. Annie loved them dearly, they were her sun and moon, and all the stars in the sky. The rest of us were just in awe of the three of them, I think it was Yolei who first called them "the holy family", angels one and all.  
  
Annie also grew up with twenty-two aunts and uncles who protected her, doted on her, and generally spoiled her rotten. I like to think that I was her favorite though. I was the one who gave Annie her first pair of goggles and taught her how to play soccer, I was the only one who could ever get away with calling her "shortstuff" or "kid", and I was who she came running to when she accidently spilled soda on Kari's camera.  
  
For eight years I was never farther from her than a phone call or subway ride, and whether she needed a shoulder to cry on, or a partner in crime, I was always there for her. I loved Annie like she was my own child, which is why I did what I did on that day, and its why I'm telling you about it now.  
  
------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Lucifmon laughed as he grew tall enough to scrape the clouds. He flicked a finger and the water in Odaiba harbor began to bubble and steam, ships burst into flame, fish floated to the surface already cooked. The evil digimon shook his scaley head and chunks of burning rock streaked from the sky to set the entire city ablaze. It was like being present for the creation of Hell.  
  
Just hours ago Lucimon had stolen Annie right from her bed. "COME AND GET HER" he had written in the sky with letters of fire. All of us had known it was trap, but what could we do when he had one of our family. We followed his trail of death and destruction to the edge of the harbor, where we found Annie, but not her captor.  
  
"No! You have to go away! You have to leave now!" She had screamed as she rushed to Kari's outstretched arms. She was crying and frantic. "He said he was going to-" And then the wind picked up.  
  
It was like being hit in the face with a typhoon. I felt myself lifted off the ground and hurled backwards, but a strong arm reached out and pulled me back in contact with the earth. TK and Kari were huddled close to the ground with Annie in between them. Even though the wind was strong enough to uproot trees and blow everyone else to God knows where, it couldn't move the three of them. Though they all had to take a strong hold on my arms and legs to keep me from going anywhere.  
  
After what seemed like hours the storm finally stopped, and all around us there was no noise except the quiet crackle of a burning world. "I'm so sorry! I should have fought him! I should have done something!" Annie sobbed in Kari's arms.  
  
"Shhh." Kari rocked her gently "There was nothing you could have done sweetheart."  
  
TK and I just watched as Lucifmon raised his arms to turn the sky blood red. "I just don't understand it." He said. "No digimon could possibly be this powerful." He knelt down next to his family and gently stroked Annie's cheek as he spoke to her. "Is there anything you heard him say? Or did he do anything to you honey? Anything at all?"  
  
Annie looked up with tears running down her darling face. "H-he cut me here, on-on my arm." She showed us a thin gash below her wrist. "He said he needed my blood."  
  
I don't think I'll ever understand what happened next. TK and Kari looked at each other and something flashed behind their eyes. It was if they had just remembered something from a long forgotton dream. They opened their mouths to speak but nothing came out, as if their voices wouldn't work.  
  
"What is it?" I asked. I could feel dread settling in the pit of stomach. Annie understood without even having to ask. She always did have a kind empathic bond with her parents. "No! Mom, Dad please! You can't." She looked back and forth from one to the other. She desperatly tugged at their arms as her body shook from racking sobs.  
  
"What the hell is going on?!" I shouted. No one answered me, so I turned away from the three of them and stared at the flames on the horizon. It was the end. The end of everything, and as usual I didn't have a goddamn clue about what was going on. And then I heard a voice carried on the wind.  
  
_When the oceans boil and stars fall from the sky. When the sky bleeds with the blood of hope and light. The time of the sacrafice has come once more._  
  
I felt sick. I had heard that voice somewhere else, a long time ago. I started to tremble. "Something isn't right." I said to myself, as if by stating the obvious everything would somehow fix itself. I started to turn around, but as I did so images flashed before my eyes. I saw mountains rise to the sky and crumble to the ground. I watched as a baby raced through its life to old age, pause, and then fall apart into dust. It took me an eternity to turn my body a few inches. An eternity that only lasted the blink of an eye.  
  
I looked once more at my friends. They were all kneeling on the ground, enveloped in a family hug. Annie was sandwiched in between TK and Kari, and all three of them were crying, their tears mixing together where they fell. They seemed to be talking to each other, but if they were it was in a voice I couldn't hear, or a language I couldn't understand. They also seemed to have changed since I looked upon them last. They appeared....cleaner....stronger....pure.....perfect.  
  
SuddenlyI felt a horrible fear sweep through my veins and I tried to move towards the family and the safety I could feel coming from them. But I only had time to take a single step before a sharp pain in my chest brought me to the ground with a scream. It felt like something with razor claws had taken hold of my heart and was starting to squeeze. For a moment I desperatly tried to twist away from the blinding pain, but then something came down on the small of my back and pinned me to the parched earth.  
  
_You should not be hear boy. _A raspy, serphent like voive was so close to my ear I could almost fell the tip of a forked tongue. _Only those_ _with a stake in the eternal conflict may be present now._ The squeezing become sharper and sharper until I felt myself screaming like a dying animal.  
  
"LET HIM GO!" The voice was like a sonic boom,and it made blood trickle from my ears even as my attacker was blown away like a piece of driftwood. A moment later I managed to wrench my eyes open to see Annie's crystal ones looking with great concern into my own. "D-don't worry Uncle D-Davis. I-I'll pro-protect you." She was fighting to keep from breaking into tears even as she consoled me. She set my head in her lap and wiped away some of the blood with her sleeve.  
  
With great effort I managed to move my head enough to see that TK and Kari were hunched over me. Their tears had stopped only to be replaced with looks of grim determination. "Please." I whimpered. "Someone tell me what's going on." Even now it hurts to admit how pathetic I sounded at that moment, but pathetic is the only word to describe my situation. I was a sparrow trying to fly in a hurricane, a mortal caught in the middle of a war of gods.  
  
"It'll be over soon Davis." Kari told me as she tenderly moved some hair out of my eyes. "And then you and Annie will be fine."  
  
I looked at the both of them, and the truth suddenly crashed down like a block of ice on my heart. "You're going to kill yourselves aren't you." My voice was tinged with hurt and anger. This all seemed so familiar. Why couldn't I place it in my memory?  
  
"It's the only way Davis." TK whispered. "It was decided long ago, back when a man sold his soul for a handful of silver, and the one he betrayed died so he could have it back."  
  
Behind me I heard Annie start to suck in air as the need to cry became overwhelming. TK and Kari immedietly wrapped her up in their arms. They were about to say goodbye.  
  
"Annie, do you remember that lullabye Mommy and Daddy used to sing you when you were little?" Kari whispered gently as she and TK covered their daughter's face in soft kisses, as if placing her in a protective cocoon of their love.  
  
Her face was twisted and red with grief. "Y-yes."   
  
Kari gave her the sweet smile that only those she loved were allowed to see. Tears that shone like holy water were once again trickling down all their cheeks. "Whenever you sing that song we'll be there with you, even when you're singing it to your own little girl someday."  
  
I felt Annie start to shake as another wave of sobbing threatened to overpower her. "Please, le-let me g-go with you."  
  
TK grinned just a tiny bit as he affectionatly rubbed his nose against Annie's, something I hadn't seen him do since she was four. "If you go with us who'll feed Gatomon and Patamon? And whose going to make sure your Uncle Davis stays out of trouble." TK reached down and took one of my hands while Kari took the other. They were saying goodbye to me too.  
  
_Oh God._ I thought. My best friends were about to die and I couldn't do anything to stop it. I didn't even understand why. I started to cry as I remembered how much I loved them. How much they meant to me. I remembered when Kari gave me a kiss for my twelth birthday, and I remembered the time me and TK accidently blew up the bathroom at school and somehow managed to pin the blame on Tai and Matt.  
  
I felt both them both give my hands a final squeeze as they stood up. "N-no!" Annie wailed as she desperatly strove to stop them from leaving.  
  
"It'll be okay honey." Kari whispered to her. " Just sing our lullabye and close your eyes, and when you open them again it will all be over."  
  
"Just hold on to Uncle Davis." TK added. They both kissed her on the cheek one final time. "Take care of her Davis. We love you." They both whispered to me as they slipped away.  
  
I felt Annie start to move, so I took her in my arms and held her close to me. "Just close your eyes Annie." I told her. I was so weak I could only watch as TK and Kari walked hand in hand towards the enormous form of Lucifmon, who just stood there unmoving, as if there was an appointment he was intent on keeping.  
  
Annie cried into my shoulder as I watched what unfolded. With every step they took TK and Kari seemed to change. They became taller and their hair grew longer. Their bodies began to shine with pink and yellow light, and then when they had almost reached the dark digimon, wings spread from their backs and arched into the air, covered in full translucent feathers that shimered with all the colors of the rainbow. Beside me Annie looked up in a knowing wonder as her parents became the angels they always were at heart._ I have to be strong for them._ I could almost here her think.   
  
TK and Kari flexed their wings and immedietly they were soaring through the air effortlessly, as if they had been doing it their whole lives. The auras around their bodies became brighter and brighter until it hurt to look at them. And eventualy, I could not make out their forms, only the intense light of two stars about to go supernova, two stars about to die in one last brilliant explosion of life.  
  
They swooped and dived around the gigantic monster, leaving trails of pink and yellow illumination in their wake. Lucifmon made only half hearted attempts to swat them away as he watched them with cautious eyes. Then all at once TK and Kari came together right in front of the monster's eyes, their respective colors merging into a pure, radiant white that pulsated and throbbed in rythym with the beating of Annie's heart. Slowly, almost mechanicly, Lucifmon cupped his hands over the shining star that was my friends.  
  
Annie sat up beside me. I saw fire flicker in her eyes. She began to speak, and as she did, two voices joined her. One from the heavens upon high, and one from the depths down below.  
  
_The covenant is renewed once more. The pound of flesh, the ounce of blood, they seal the pact until the next time the eternal planes converge. The beast is sated once more, and so returns to sleeping death.  
_  
As the words slowly died away, Lucifmon began to shrink, and the holy light inside his hands began to dim. TK and Kari were dying, and I felt what was left my heart scream in anguish. My head reeled. Hadn't I been warned of this? Hadn't I pledged to stop it? Why couldn't I remmeber?  
  
"I can stop this!" Annie shouted to the world. She turned to me. "Uncle Davis I can stop this! I can save Mom and Dad!"  
  
I opened my mouth, but she had already listened to my thoughts. "I know I can! I can feel it inside me!"  
  
"Annie." I griped her by the shoulders. "How?" Hope was slipping into my voice, I found myself kindling a light in my soul..  
  
"I'm strong Uncle Davis. So much stronger than they think."  
  
I believed her. I could feel power radiating from her. This sweet young girl had not only the power of hope and light, but the powers of all the crests inside her. She was the pinnacle of everthing. Still I felt fear. I was afraid of losing her too.  
  
"Please Uncle Davis." She said again. Though she no longer seemed to be a scared heartbroken little girl, she was still crying. "I can do it. I can rewrite the pages of destiny."  
  
She reached out to touch my hand and I remembered. I saw a friend of the first Digidestined reveal the fates of my friends. I saw him hide the truth from me in my own mind because I couldn't bare it. And I understood the clue not even he had relized he had revealed. _If you truly believe... _  
  
"Go Annie." I said. "I believe in you, with all my heart."   
  
With a flash of her stormy eyes she lept from my side. She ran a few steps towards me and then stopped. She spread out her arms and leaned back her head, and then with an expression of triumph she unleashed her power.  
  
The light was so strong I couldn't keep my eyes open, the world quaked and trembled as this impudent little thing of an angel tried to defy divine law, and succedded. Far away I heard the sound of Lucifmon groaning in painful protest, his voice was soon joined by thousands of others that seemed to rise from inside the pit of the earth. They screamed in horror as they felt themselves pushed towards the edge of oblivion with no way to stop it.  
  
But Annie wasn't strong enough. If only she had been older, more expierienced in the powers of heaven and earth that were hers to command, she could have done it. But beneath it all she was still just a child fighting to save those she loved most, and she began to weaken.  
  
_If you truly believe._ The words floated back to me once more, and everything became clear. I let my heart drift of its own accord, and it immedietly brushed against Annie's. I felt her falter and stumble. I paused for an instant as I considered what I was about to do, but only for an instant, and then I gave everything to Annie.  
  
All my hopes and dreams, all my strength and courage, every last bit of love and life. I sent her a miracle. I sent her me. She grew strong again, and now there was no way she could be beaten.  
  
Even as my body grew cold and my heart stopped beating, I knew she had won. I could feel her joy as her parents held her tightly once more. Then I felt a frightening sorrow fill her heart and for a moment it confused me. But then I realized must have seen me laying there on the ground, drained of everything. I laughed a little to myself. That was nothing to worry about anymore. _Don't worry._ I told her. _I'll never be far away._  
  
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
_Epilogue: Davis  
_  
  
I don't get to Annie as much anymore, but I do check in on her from time to time. Sometimes she evens comes to visit me in her dreams. We talk, and I tell her to take care of her parents, and all her aunts and uncles. Since she's getting older, I also warn her to stay away from guys like me, because they're only interested in one thing.  
  
She says that next time she visits she might bring someone else she wants me to meet. She wants me to meet her new baby brother, she wants me to meet Davis.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
